It made him smile, and he gave me a shy glance out of his one perfect eye. The shy was pretend, but the pleasure wasn't.

I stayed on tiptoe long enough to put my forehead against his. My hands played in the curls at the back of his neck, and he shivered under my touch. I stood back on the ground flat-footed and moved out of the door so he could pass.

Rhys shook his head. "That was her idea of a good-bye kiss, Doyle." He glanced back at the other man, still kneeling in the bed. "Have fun, kiddies." But his serious face didn't match the flippant words.

Rhys offered me the hairbrush from the pile of clothing, then I let him out. I shut the door behind him, and was suddenly very aware that I was alone with Doyle. Doyle, whom I'd never seen nude. Doyle, who had frightened me when I was a child. Doyle, who had been the Queen's right hand for a thousand years. He'd kept me safe, guarded my body and my life, but somehow he hadn't really been mine. Somehow he wouldn't really be mine until I'd touched that dark body, seen all of him bare before me. I wasn't sure why that was so important to me, but it was. By withholding himself from me, it was almost as if he was holding his options open. As if he believed that once he was with me, he'd have no more options. Which wasn't true. I'd been with my onetime fiance, Griffin, for seven years," and in the end he'd found plenty of options, none of them me. Having sex with me hadn't been a life-altering experience for him. Why should it be different for Doyle?

"Meredith." He said my name once, but for once his voice wasn't neutral. That one word held uncertainty, a question, and a hope. He spoke my name once more, and it turned me around to face the bed and what lay waiting for me among the burgundy sheets.